Argyle developed a communications program to support the launch of Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission’s new report. Choose wisely. Options and Trade-offs in Recycling Carbon Pricing Revenues.

Argyle Brand Counsel+Design Inc., is proud to have collaborated with Ontario Pork, the organization representing the nearly 1,400 hog producers in the province, on the strategic and creative development of its inaugural Social Responsibility Report.

Looking forward to its centenary year, the Toronto Maple Leafs Hockey Club’s new logo recalls their now distant glory days, a magical era that stretched from the early-40s to the mid-60s, when the team won 10 Stanley Cups.

While plagiarism and trademark violations are real issues globally, I am very much inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the design team, especially in such a high profile case, and assume that the work was the product of original thinking, or at the very least the result of an earnest iterative creative process.

Many companies’ approach to brand positioning lies in describing their value proposition in terms of functional benefits or by emphasizing the quality of their services. This costs them opportunities to meaningfully differentiate themselves and present a value proposition that is relevant to a market already saturated with parity offerings.

“Design Thinking” for graphic designers has to start with individual practitioners developing an ability to support the strategic value of their work and to demonstrate how it helps organizations of all types meet their market objectives and lead to the desired business outcomes.

Without a consistent and cohesive “brand”, the social sector will remain to many – including politicians and the business establishment – a fractioned and marginal player with neither the profile, the capacity nor the representation to fulfil its purpose to bring balance, fairness and justice to a society that seems increasingly splayed between the polarities of the public and private sectors.

A creatively fresh and graphically pleasing new visual identity for one of the GTA’s most important healthcare institutions points to a flawed selection process, resulting in a confounding graphical redundancy that negates the initial intent of the new brand.

With the 2016 US presidential election now clearly on the horizon, we are beginning to see how candidates seeking their respective party’s nomination have chosen to visually brand themselves and their campaign. The benchmark in this regard was set by the Obama campaign in 2008. We’ll have a look at how this new crop of candidates measures up in this regard.